Weekly Wrap Up 10/18 to 10/22

THE 3 READS ~
Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction & Pride and Prejudice
La ~ Finished Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Started Shiloh
Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island
Morning Read Aloud ~ Finished The Horse  & His Boy, Started The Best Worst Halloween Ever
Evening Read Aloud ~ Finished Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~
No extra projects to speak of this week. I did however set fire to some tortilla chips in the oven. That was fun. ;-) Luckily nothing else caught on fire. I kept the oven door shut & the fire just burned itself out. It was my first kitchen fire.

Out & About Learning ~
This week we had our regular Homeschool class at the Aquatic center. They did team building games.
We had our monthly art class at the Kimball Art Center. We studied this very unique artist,Devorah Sperber, who recreates masterpieces like DaVinci’s Last Supper out of hanging rows of spools of thread. To top that off she creates them upside down and then you look through a small crystal globe and they appear right side up. It was amazing and gave me an opportunity to talk about hoe our eyes work.

Study Time ~
This week was a great study week! Here are some highlights.

• La finished 2 project on India. One about Henna & another about the Hindi Language
• We caught & studied a yellow jacket in a bug jar.
• worked on spelling, cursive, latin, math
• I have been doing Life of Fred: Fractions. La loves to do this with me. The stories are very entertaining & she can do some of the problems. Even if she cannot do the arithmetic (like long division), she can tell me how to figure out the problem (e.g. you need to multiply the hours times 60 minutes). We are on Chapter 10 & it is getting too hard for her. So she asked me to stop doing Life of Fred on my own and help her learn all she needs to know so she can finish the Fractions with me. Now that is the art of inspiring!!!
• I found out that La understand negative numbers & can add and subtract them!

Afternoons ~
Nothing to note out of the ordinary this week. The weather has been great so lots of outside time with the neighbor kids.

TJEd Blog Roll

Leadership education is really tough. It is a blood, sweat & tears kind of life. As far as homeschooling goes, I think it is the toughest & most rewarding way of doing things. There is no how to. You must struggle through the principles and work out for your family how to implement them.  This is why I so enjoy reading the blogs of other Mom's working out their own journey. So, if you are a TJEd family and would like to share your blog with me & others, join the Blog Hop below & add it to your blog.  Let's stand together in supporting & inspiring each other!

Life Skills - Baking

Today La had her first ever real baking lesson. She has baked along side me many times, but this time it was all her.  I sat by and coached. She did all the mixing, measuring, kneading, and shaping. I did help with timing, checking for doneness & bringing her back to rereading the directions so she knew what to do next. La will graduate from Baking Life Skills when she can bake 10 items on her own. Oh, and the crescent rolls came out very nicely!  We will be having them with dinner tonight. Looks like my experimenting with yeast baking the last few weeks has really rubbed off on her.  Ah, the rewards of inspire not require. :-) 

This photo was taken by La.  It looks like it is from a cookbook!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/11 to 10/15

What we are reading ~
Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction
La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief 

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island
Morning Read Aloud ~ The Horse  & His Boy
Evening Read Aloud ~ Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~
After not having internet access on my computer for about 10 days I finally got it back up and running again! Everything else was pretty normal household-wise this week.

Out & About ~

We has our first Firefly Corps meting about India this week. La did her presentation about Indian Payal or anklets & then the girls all made their own complete with little bells. Sorry I don't have any pic's. They came out all blurry with my phone camera. During the meeting other girls presented on geography, contributions & Ghandi. La skipped weekly homeschool class this Wednesday to stay home and play with the neighbor kids.

Our Study Time ~

We continued with the regulars of spelling, Latin & math. La says Latin is getting boring and she doesn't want to do it anymore. I tell her that is fine with me, but every time I get the book out she is right there doing it with me! Other highlights of the week ~

• online jigsaw puzzles
• started cursive practice
• read some about Columbus
• catching salamanders

The cursive writing was a surprise to me. La just said one day during spelling that she wanted to learn cursive so she could write faster.  I reminded her that she had a cursive work book she could use. That seemed to kill her interest. The next morning I suggest I write a sentence from one of her favorite books in cursive & she could copy it. She loved that idea. Now she is spending a few minutes a day trying to write out this one sentence perfectly. She said when she can write it well she will start with another sentence.  It's amazing how kids will find an interesting way to learn something when they want to learn it. That is the essence of Simple not Complex.

I had my first book club meeting this week. It was so much fun. Seven fun ladies came over & we discussed The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne. It was a lively discussion! I can't wait until next month!

Afternoons ~

Outside catching salamanders! Need I say more?

Next week we have art class at the Kimball Art Center. That is always wonderful!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/4 to 10/8

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Finished Brewster's Courage

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ The Horse  & His Boy

Evening Read Aloud ~ Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~ 

This week I made my grandmother's sticky buns! Making these made me miss her. She passed away about a year and a half ago. before that she suffered from Alzheimer's Disease for many years. I do wish I had asked her to show me how to make these when I could have!

Out & About Learning ~

We had homes school class at the South Summit Aquatic & Fitness center as usual. I don't think I have been including that in my wrap-ups. It was Playground Games this week. Always a very fun & social time!

Friday we went to the Bug Brigade at the Utah Museum pf Natural History. Out study of microorganisms has led to an interest in bugs. So off we went! La held a few bugs & had a confrontation with a praying mantis. 

Study Time ~

We decided to not make a lot of plans this week and let study time flow. We still accomplished so much! 

• La made a Lunch Menu with prices & we used it at lunch time to practice counting money, making change, etc...
• La planned her project for India to be done at the next Firefly Corps meeting.
• Continued with Latin & Spelling
• Learned about the Tower of Hanoi puzzle & played it. Tough logic puzzle!
• La got curious about where yeast comes from & what it is. No doubt due to my recent fascination with baking. We looked it up which lead to thre days of learning about microorganisms.
• We watched videos about amoebas & cell division. La made a model of a cell out out of Ziploc bag, water, a marble (nucleus), pencil cushion (contractile vacuole) & an eraser (food vacuole). 
• sketched some insects. Do you know what makes an arachnid different from other insects? We do!

Afternoons ~ 

We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been catching newts. They look like small black & green salamanders & we have lots of them. La & the neighbor kids love them!

Next week we have Firefly Corps Meeting on Tuesday. Should be fun!

3 Onesie Dresses

3 dresses for a one year olds birthday.  The tutu is a separate piece from the onsie. The purple is my favorite!

Weekly Wrap Up 10.1.10

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Brewster's Courage

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ Finished Voyage of the Dawn Treader & Started The Horse  & His Boy

Evening Read Aloud ~ Chris started reading Gulliver's Travels to us.

Around the House ~ This week I made bread for the first time! it came out really good. I might make my grandmother's sticky buns next week.

I also started & am still trying to finish some onsie dresses for a birthday gift. Our pastor's granddaughter is having her first birthday party on Sunday. I will post pictures of these when I get them done.

Out & About Learning ~ Firefly Corps Meeting was Monday. We learned a lot about Greek Gods & made a Greek time line. It was fun. friday was our our Greek fieldtrip to the Olympic Cauldron Park & lunch at Yanni's Greek Express. Yum!

Study Time ~

A few less lessons this week & more organic learning. I let 2 days slip by without official study time. Mind you a lot of other learning was done, but do want to get back to 5 days a week of scheduled study time. The day just goes much smoother when we do this.

• Latin 2 days
• Sequential Spelling 2 days
• Math lesson and practice. I was pleasantly surprised that La understand place value of to one trillion. She is always surprising me with what she knows.
• La on her own
• geoboards, hook & latch, lots of reading, practiced her tin whistle
• In Momschool I  covered the following
• Peloponnesian Wars 
• Odysseus & the Cyclops
• Looked up the species of some trees on our hike

Afternoons ~ We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been collecting and chopping acorns. I love to see her spend a few hours outside everyday. Chores & errands also ate up a few afternoons this week.

See you next Friday!